Emma Rhyner
Digital Marketer. Content Creator. Donut Enthusiast.

CONTENT MARKETING

Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella Photo Booth

Being a family-friendly show, we wanted to create an experience that could provide a special memory for our audience members while also marketing the production. We created this branded backdrop and customized it with twinkle lights, a lit carriage, and other winter decorations to match the holiday season. We saw incredible engagement from audience members taking photos and posting them on social media, thus giving us free promotion through this interactive piece at the theater.

Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz Digital Scavenger Hunt

Working to increase awareness, engagement, and ultimately ticket sales for Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz at Paper Mill Playhouse, we worked with a company called Social Scavenger to create a digital scavenger hunt so our audience members could “chase the rainbow.” We developed various challenges based on the production in order to educate and engage the audience. We had over 200 participants and recruited the Harmony Helper App to sponsor a $1,000 prize for the winner.

Vacation Rental by Owner

As part of a Branded Strategic Storytelling class, I collaborated with three other students to create a content marketing campaign for the home-sharing company VRBO. We analyzed the audience VRBO should be targeting as well as what gap in the market it could be filling. We then came up with a campaign supported by research that included all upstream and downstream elements.

Our campaign surrounded what we dubbed VRBO's Mobile Travel Agent - a concept we came up with to deliver a personalized travel experience to each customer.

Below is an outline of the Mobile Travel Agent campaign.

Why: Business Need

  • Home-sharing is an up-and-coming market: only 12% of travelers have ever used home-sharing

  • About 53% of Americans have never even heard of home-sharing, giving VRBO a big enough potential market to give themselves a place and reputation

  • VRBO is behind AriBnB with active listings (800,000 vs >1,000,000)

  • AriBnB focuses on single rooms, shared rooms, and apartments while VRBO markets entire homes or apartments

Who: “The Invested Family Vacationer”

  • Invested Family Vacationers believes family vacation is one of the few ways to get the whole family together under the same roof.

  • Grown families who have limited opportunities for quality time

    • 70% of American families are taking annual vacations together

  • Parents are more overwhelmed by the increasing options for travel, and have less time to devote to researching these options for vacation.

  • Experiences and memories are the central desire for family vacationers

  • 33 to 40 percent of $270 billion in leisure travel is multigenerational, and families are also increasingly traveling with other family friends

  • Unmet emotional need: One chance a year to get the family together.

What: VRBO's Mobile Travel Agent

  • An opt-in program that brings you personalized travel suggestions directly to your pocket while on vacation

  • Plug in all your vacation demographics online (age range, budget, destination, interests, etc.) and our team of VRBO experts will find the perfect suggestions for your complicated needs.

  • Suggestions based on personalized data about your trips, including dinner ideas, weather updates, road trip playlists, etc.

Where: Distribution Platforms

  • VRBO Website and text messages

    • Links and website option needs to be mobile friendly

    • Only 23% of travelers say they have downloaded an app for travel brands they use

  • Competition

    • Concur, Travelosity, Tripadvisor

    • Airbnb experience and reservation tab

  • Advertising

    • On selective searches

    • family vacation category: ‘family vacation,’ ‘family trip ideas,’ ‘kid friendly vacation,’ ‘inexpensive family vacation’

When: Distribution Timing

  • Vacation decision times

    • Provide customers with options and suggestions while on their trip

    • 9 out of 10 travelers expect travel providers to share relevant information with them while on their trip

  • Different times for different content

    • i.e. Weather updates in the morning, dinner suggestions in the late afternoon, etc.

How: Tangible Development

  • Geo-targeting and partnerships with businesses

  • YELP.com reviews/rating

  • VRBO Ambassadors

  • Research

    • dieticians

    • chefs

    • music curators

  • May take time however it will payoff in the long run

Deliverables: Measuring Success

  • “Sign the Guestbook”

    • Rate each experience, reviews go on Yelp

    • Comment section to leave on the VRBO’s individual listing for potential vacationers to read

    • 6 months after, reminding users of the time they had, asking if they want to

  • Number of people “opting-in” to the online travel agent experience

  • Engagement of people clicking on links and viewing information the online travel agent sends them